The Unicorn Club #5: Unicorns in Love
You know which books were awesome? The Unicorn Club series. Let's read one of those.
For those less familiar with the series, here's a reminder: during the twins' seventh grade, the Unicorn Club expanded to include Liz, Maria Slater, and a new girl called Evie Kim. Mandy Miller, she who overcame cancer in a single book, became Unicorn president after Janet Howell left SVMS and, alas, the series. Anyway, the Unicorns are more socially aware in these books, thanks to St. Liz's influence (they work at a daycare centre regularly), and each book is narrated by one of them. Today's story is from Evie.
Speculation: the tiny girl whispering in the blonde's ear is Evie; the blonde is obviously one of the twins (the loose hair and bitchy expression make me suspect Jessica, although she's wearing a very Lizish outfit of jeans and a blue top); the brunette in the bobby socks(!) looks like Lila; the girl in the foreground is wearing a classic Mandy Miller outfit, so that's probably her.
SVMS is putting on a play! It's called Tale of a Teenage Vampire. I can't believe I'm recapping another vampire book. Anyway, naturally the Unicorns decide to get involved. Mandy and Evie want to be costume designers and Jessica wants to be an actress. Evie tells Maria that she doesn't look like a vampire. I'm not sure if this is because she's very pretty or because she's black. Has Evie never heard of the hot female vampire archetype? Or seen Blade?
Some guy called Mr. Drew holds auditions. Whither Mr. Bowman and his crazy bowties? Half a sentence later, everyone is cast, with Jessica, Ellen, and Maria all getting roles. Bless you, Evie, for sparing us the endless chapters of audition drama which feature in every other book where they put on a play. For those keeping track, Lila is stage manager and Liz and Mary are doing set design.
Description of the plot of the play, which sounds pretty impractical for a middle school to stage (it involves, among other things, a theme park ride and a football goalpost), but at least no one turns into a magpie this time around. Apparently Rick Hunter is playing the vampire. I forget who he is within the Sweet Valley universe - all the Chucks and Dannys and Brians tend to blend into each other after a while - but he sounds like a tool. Mary, the boring Unicorn, has a crush on him.
Evie, Ellen, and Jessica take a bunch of the daycare kids to the science museum. Good grief. Don't be too alarmed, though - they end up slacking off and talking about the play while the kids run wild. Business as usual. Jessica is not the heroine for once, and instead has been cast as a character called the Freshman, who speaks directly to the audience. It pains me to have to tell you that she forgets the word "narrator" and has to have Evie remind her of it. Having Jessica as a favourite character is very trying sometimes. Then she and Ellen start gossiping about the boys they have crushes on and Evie gets pissy. "Is everyone around here suddenly talking about boys a lot, or what?" she wonders. I think that she should reconsider her membership in the Unicorn Club.
Evie describes her bedroom. It contains nothing but a bed, a violin, and a music stand, yet it is "plenty big enough" for her. Presumably this is because she is a very tiny person, as she keeps reminding us. Still, I want to take her shopping and buy her a wardrobe at the very least.
It is revealed that Mandy has a crush on Peter DeHaven (science nerd), Ellen has a crush on Tim Davis (football player?), and Lila has a crush on some guy called Tommy (pinball wizard?!). I have to say, much of this book resulted in misery and confusion for me as I desperately tried to remember who was dating Tim and so on, so I'm going to do you a favour and cut out the boyfriendy bits as much as I can. Anyway, all four girls start dating the boys they like straight away, as is de rigeur in the Sweet Valley universe.
Lila and co. ditch the Unicorner at lunchtime to hang out with their boyfriends. Jessica, Evie, Liz, and Maria don't care. But they do care the following day when they're the only ones to show up at the mall! Apparently the other girls are on romantic assignations and have completely forgotten about the shopping trip. Evie goes on about wanting some ice cream for a while. I guess we can pick some up while we're shopping for her wardrobe. At Casey's, the girls run into Lila and Mandy and their boyfriends. They've decided to go and see a movie and aren't interested in spending time with their beau-less buddies. Jessica is so upset that she doesn't want any ice cream! I would never be that upset. Never.
The following Monday, Lila and co. all slack off a rehearsal and spend their time flirting with their boyfriends. The following day, they don't bother showing up to the daycare centre with the other Unicorns. Burn! Jessica, once more, is upset. I think she should start dating Aaron Dallas again. What happened between them the summer between sixth and seventh grade to make them break up? He's probably just sitting gloomily at home throughout this series, waiting for Jessica to call and developing his rage issues.
Incidentally, we're clearly meant to hate Lila, Mary, Mandy, and Ellen for being Bad Feminists and Ditching Their Friends For Boys, and all those other things that Good Friends Don't Do that we read about in teen magazines. While I see the ghost-writer's point (and generally agree with it), I also think that the remaining girls are suffering from Babysittersclubitis. How dare Lila and co. make friends outside their established social circle and have new experiences which have nothing to do with the Unicorns?! Shun them! Shun them all!
Aaaaaaaaanyway. The boyfriendless Unicorns decide to hold an official Unicorn meeting on Friday night to discuss the issue, but when they tell their friends, they refuse to show up! They've already made plans with their boyfriends! Oh, man. You guys might want to look away for the rest of this paragraph. Things get a little rough for our heroines from this point on. Jessica gives the others an ultimatum: "Either you want to be our friends, and be Unicorns, or you don't. And if you don't come to that meeting tomorrow night, then I guess you don't want to be Unicorns anymore!" Lila and co. choose their boyfriends. Mega-burn! The Unicorn Club is FINISHED!
The girls spend the next two days deliberately ignoring each other. No one sits at the Unicorner at lunch. At rehearsal, Mandy communicates to Evie only by passing notes to her, earning my loathing. I once had a roommate who would only communicate through notes she left on the microwave when she was feeling passive-aggressive. (I showed her, though. I pretended that I'd never seen the notes! Passive-aggression is a game two can play!) I think that Evie should punch Mandy. I don't usually condone random violence for minor social indelicacies, but if there's one thing that this series is missing, it's Todd-punches. And doppelgangers, actually.
Even Ellen, Sweet Valley's answer to Karen from Mean Girls, breaks my heart by bitchily refusing to pass the basketball to Evie in gym class. (She redeems herself by accidentally calling Casablanca "Casabonita". Never change, Ellen.)
Casa Wakefield. Evie, Maria, and the twins are having a sad little party of four, with frozen pizzas and vampire movies. They debate whether or not they should start a new club. Why can't they just hang out as friends, like normal thirteen-year-olds? Jesus, these kids are weird. Ultimately they decide not to "rush into anything". Jessica is upset and sulky. Psst, Jess. Aaron Dallas. Just think about it, okay?
Evie sinks into depression about the Unicorn split. A very sad confession: when I wasn't friends with my friends for a while in our equivalent of sixth grade, I comforted myself by reading the Sweet Vallies where everyone loathes Jessica for a while (like She's Not What She Seems and The Incredible Madame Jessica), so that I could feel misunderstood alongside her. I think that Evie should do the same. Add the reissues to the on-going shopping basket.
The following week, Liz and Evie eavesdrop on Mary's boyfriend. Evie! I expected this sort of thing from Liz, but not you. Anyway, they find out that he's going to ditch Mary at the last minute and take some other girl to the semiformal! I called him on being a tool! Admittedly this plot twist is given away on the back of the book, but still. Evie calls him a "total heel". Hee. That makes me like her a little bit. The two girls confer and decide not to tell anyone about what they've found out - yet.
Then they change their minds and invite everyone over to Casa Wakefield so that they have an audience while they tell Mary that her boyfriend is cheating on her! What the crap? They couldn't get her on her own for two minutes? They all decide to exact revenge on Mary's boyfriend by publicly humiliating him. As he's playing the lead role in the vampire play, the plan is to write a new scene he doesn't know about where all the girls tell him what a jerk he is.
Bizarrely, everyone then starts talking about the semiformal again - like, I think that would be the one thing that Mary doesn't want to think about right now, guys. Evie mentions that she doesn't have a date. Okay, final list: a wardrobe, some ice cream, Sweet Valley High books, and a subscription to match.com. And possibly punching lessons from Todd.
Opening night. The scene goes as planned, with the bonus of his pants falling down. Comedy gold. Stand down, Buster Keaton: there's a new sheriff in Chucklesville and her name is Francine Pascal.
The Unicorns are back together at last and eating ice cream in Casey's! They're all wearing their Unicorn jackets like they're the Pink Ladies from Grease. I can't bring myself to mock them for it. They all decide to go to the semiformal whether they have boyfriends or not, which is a fairly nice sentiment for Sweet Valley. The end.
A final note: I think this book probably would've been improved by being told from Jessica's perspective (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Jessica fan). There's nothing wrong with Evie as a narrator, but I kind of feel that she's too much of a newcomer to really feel the impact of the split, and, being a year younger than the others, she doesn't want a boyfriend anyway - which is fair enough, but it means that she doesn't really appreciate the fact that Jessica does want one, and is feeling inadequate. Imagine how much it would have sucked in Little Women if Meg's big party scenes where she flirts with all the boys and pretends to be wealthy had been told from the perspective of Hannah the cook, who's separated from Meg by age, priorities, and understanding of the world.
Obviously there's nothing wrong with getting an outsider's pov on characters we already know, and it can often work quite well in the hands of a good author, but (leaving aside the fact that the standard of writing for SV is fairly low) I don't think that this was the right story for it. This was more Jessica's story than Evie's - Lila, Ellen, Mandy, and Mary were her friends originally, and now they've all gone off with their boyfriends while she's lumped with Liz, Maria, and Evie? That's got to suck, and her behaviour throughout the book shows that she's really bothered. So why isn't she the narrator? Why do we have to see it through Evie's eyes, who by her own admission isn't that close to Jessica?
YES, I AM OVERTHINKING SWEET VALLEY TWINS. I regret nothing!
For those less familiar with the series, here's a reminder: during the twins' seventh grade, the Unicorn Club expanded to include Liz, Maria Slater, and a new girl called Evie Kim. Mandy Miller, she who overcame cancer in a single book, became Unicorn president after Janet Howell left SVMS and, alas, the series. Anyway, the Unicorns are more socially aware in these books, thanks to St. Liz's influence (they work at a daycare centre regularly), and each book is narrated by one of them. Today's story is from Evie.
Speculation: the tiny girl whispering in the blonde's ear is Evie; the blonde is obviously one of the twins (the loose hair and bitchy expression make me suspect Jessica, although she's wearing a very Lizish outfit of jeans and a blue top); the brunette in the bobby socks(!) looks like Lila; the girl in the foreground is wearing a classic Mandy Miller outfit, so that's probably her.
SVMS is putting on a play! It's called Tale of a Teenage Vampire. I can't believe I'm recapping another vampire book. Anyway, naturally the Unicorns decide to get involved. Mandy and Evie want to be costume designers and Jessica wants to be an actress. Evie tells Maria that she doesn't look like a vampire. I'm not sure if this is because she's very pretty or because she's black. Has Evie never heard of the hot female vampire archetype? Or seen Blade?
Some guy called Mr. Drew holds auditions. Whither Mr. Bowman and his crazy bowties? Half a sentence later, everyone is cast, with Jessica, Ellen, and Maria all getting roles. Bless you, Evie, for sparing us the endless chapters of audition drama which feature in every other book where they put on a play. For those keeping track, Lila is stage manager and Liz and Mary are doing set design.
Description of the plot of the play, which sounds pretty impractical for a middle school to stage (it involves, among other things, a theme park ride and a football goalpost), but at least no one turns into a magpie this time around. Apparently Rick Hunter is playing the vampire. I forget who he is within the Sweet Valley universe - all the Chucks and Dannys and Brians tend to blend into each other after a while - but he sounds like a tool. Mary, the boring Unicorn, has a crush on him.
Evie, Ellen, and Jessica take a bunch of the daycare kids to the science museum. Good grief. Don't be too alarmed, though - they end up slacking off and talking about the play while the kids run wild. Business as usual. Jessica is not the heroine for once, and instead has been cast as a character called the Freshman, who speaks directly to the audience. It pains me to have to tell you that she forgets the word "narrator" and has to have Evie remind her of it. Having Jessica as a favourite character is very trying sometimes. Then she and Ellen start gossiping about the boys they have crushes on and Evie gets pissy. "Is everyone around here suddenly talking about boys a lot, or what?" she wonders. I think that she should reconsider her membership in the Unicorn Club.
Evie describes her bedroom. It contains nothing but a bed, a violin, and a music stand, yet it is "plenty big enough" for her. Presumably this is because she is a very tiny person, as she keeps reminding us. Still, I want to take her shopping and buy her a wardrobe at the very least.
It is revealed that Mandy has a crush on Peter DeHaven (science nerd), Ellen has a crush on Tim Davis (football player?), and Lila has a crush on some guy called Tommy (pinball wizard?!). I have to say, much of this book resulted in misery and confusion for me as I desperately tried to remember who was dating Tim and so on, so I'm going to do you a favour and cut out the boyfriendy bits as much as I can. Anyway, all four girls start dating the boys they like straight away, as is de rigeur in the Sweet Valley universe.
Lila and co. ditch the Unicorner at lunchtime to hang out with their boyfriends. Jessica, Evie, Liz, and Maria don't care. But they do care the following day when they're the only ones to show up at the mall! Apparently the other girls are on romantic assignations and have completely forgotten about the shopping trip. Evie goes on about wanting some ice cream for a while. I guess we can pick some up while we're shopping for her wardrobe. At Casey's, the girls run into Lila and Mandy and their boyfriends. They've decided to go and see a movie and aren't interested in spending time with their beau-less buddies. Jessica is so upset that she doesn't want any ice cream! I would never be that upset. Never.
The following Monday, Lila and co. all slack off a rehearsal and spend their time flirting with their boyfriends. The following day, they don't bother showing up to the daycare centre with the other Unicorns. Burn! Jessica, once more, is upset. I think she should start dating Aaron Dallas again. What happened between them the summer between sixth and seventh grade to make them break up? He's probably just sitting gloomily at home throughout this series, waiting for Jessica to call and developing his rage issues.
Incidentally, we're clearly meant to hate Lila, Mary, Mandy, and Ellen for being Bad Feminists and Ditching Their Friends For Boys, and all those other things that Good Friends Don't Do that we read about in teen magazines. While I see the ghost-writer's point (and generally agree with it), I also think that the remaining girls are suffering from Babysittersclubitis. How dare Lila and co. make friends outside their established social circle and have new experiences which have nothing to do with the Unicorns?! Shun them! Shun them all!
Aaaaaaaaanyway. The boyfriendless Unicorns decide to hold an official Unicorn meeting on Friday night to discuss the issue, but when they tell their friends, they refuse to show up! They've already made plans with their boyfriends! Oh, man. You guys might want to look away for the rest of this paragraph. Things get a little rough for our heroines from this point on. Jessica gives the others an ultimatum: "Either you want to be our friends, and be Unicorns, or you don't. And if you don't come to that meeting tomorrow night, then I guess you don't want to be Unicorns anymore!" Lila and co. choose their boyfriends. Mega-burn! The Unicorn Club is FINISHED!
The girls spend the next two days deliberately ignoring each other. No one sits at the Unicorner at lunch. At rehearsal, Mandy communicates to Evie only by passing notes to her, earning my loathing. I once had a roommate who would only communicate through notes she left on the microwave when she was feeling passive-aggressive. (I showed her, though. I pretended that I'd never seen the notes! Passive-aggression is a game two can play!) I think that Evie should punch Mandy. I don't usually condone random violence for minor social indelicacies, but if there's one thing that this series is missing, it's Todd-punches. And doppelgangers, actually.
Even Ellen, Sweet Valley's answer to Karen from Mean Girls, breaks my heart by bitchily refusing to pass the basketball to Evie in gym class. (She redeems herself by accidentally calling Casablanca "Casabonita". Never change, Ellen.)
Casa Wakefield. Evie, Maria, and the twins are having a sad little party of four, with frozen pizzas and vampire movies. They debate whether or not they should start a new club. Why can't they just hang out as friends, like normal thirteen-year-olds? Jesus, these kids are weird. Ultimately they decide not to "rush into anything". Jessica is upset and sulky. Psst, Jess. Aaron Dallas. Just think about it, okay?
Evie sinks into depression about the Unicorn split. A very sad confession: when I wasn't friends with my friends for a while in our equivalent of sixth grade, I comforted myself by reading the Sweet Vallies where everyone loathes Jessica for a while (like She's Not What She Seems and The Incredible Madame Jessica), so that I could feel misunderstood alongside her. I think that Evie should do the same. Add the reissues to the on-going shopping basket.
The following week, Liz and Evie eavesdrop on Mary's boyfriend. Evie! I expected this sort of thing from Liz, but not you. Anyway, they find out that he's going to ditch Mary at the last minute and take some other girl to the semiformal! I called him on being a tool! Admittedly this plot twist is given away on the back of the book, but still. Evie calls him a "total heel". Hee. That makes me like her a little bit. The two girls confer and decide not to tell anyone about what they've found out - yet.
Then they change their minds and invite everyone over to Casa Wakefield so that they have an audience while they tell Mary that her boyfriend is cheating on her! What the crap? They couldn't get her on her own for two minutes? They all decide to exact revenge on Mary's boyfriend by publicly humiliating him. As he's playing the lead role in the vampire play, the plan is to write a new scene he doesn't know about where all the girls tell him what a jerk he is.
Bizarrely, everyone then starts talking about the semiformal again - like, I think that would be the one thing that Mary doesn't want to think about right now, guys. Evie mentions that she doesn't have a date. Okay, final list: a wardrobe, some ice cream, Sweet Valley High books, and a subscription to match.com. And possibly punching lessons from Todd.
Opening night. The scene goes as planned, with the bonus of his pants falling down. Comedy gold. Stand down, Buster Keaton: there's a new sheriff in Chucklesville and her name is Francine Pascal.
The Unicorns are back together at last and eating ice cream in Casey's! They're all wearing their Unicorn jackets like they're the Pink Ladies from Grease. I can't bring myself to mock them for it. They all decide to go to the semiformal whether they have boyfriends or not, which is a fairly nice sentiment for Sweet Valley. The end.
A final note: I think this book probably would've been improved by being told from Jessica's perspective (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Jessica fan). There's nothing wrong with Evie as a narrator, but I kind of feel that she's too much of a newcomer to really feel the impact of the split, and, being a year younger than the others, she doesn't want a boyfriend anyway - which is fair enough, but it means that she doesn't really appreciate the fact that Jessica does want one, and is feeling inadequate. Imagine how much it would have sucked in Little Women if Meg's big party scenes where she flirts with all the boys and pretends to be wealthy had been told from the perspective of Hannah the cook, who's separated from Meg by age, priorities, and understanding of the world.
Obviously there's nothing wrong with getting an outsider's pov on characters we already know, and it can often work quite well in the hands of a good author, but (leaving aside the fact that the standard of writing for SV is fairly low) I don't think that this was the right story for it. This was more Jessica's story than Evie's - Lila, Ellen, Mandy, and Mary were her friends originally, and now they've all gone off with their boyfriends while she's lumped with Liz, Maria, and Evie? That's got to suck, and her behaviour throughout the book shows that she's really bothered. So why isn't she the narrator? Why do we have to see it through Evie's eyes, who by her own admission isn't that close to Jessica?
YES, I AM OVERTHINKING SWEET VALLEY TWINS. I regret nothing!